‘Joe Kennedy’

Eva J. Stuart’s work is rooted in abstract portraiture, drawing from the complexities of a religious upbringing and the quiet struggles of women in a world that refuses to see them.

Joe Kennedy

The day Joe Kennedy died, I was smoking a cigar on my front porch. My wife at the time ran out to tell us the news. She was a fat girl but not when I married her. 

My brother and I looked at each other. We didn’t know what to say. We had seen the pitcher maybe once. Talked about his merits, but that wasn’t a big deal considering we debated just about everyone who put on a baseball uniform and picked up a bat. We turned to her, blank-faced as if to say, so what? 

What caused my ape of a wife to barge out on the porch like that, I don’t know. But after she had said it, my brother and I took a puff at the same time looked back at her through a smoke-filled haze, and said, “Huh.” 

“Aren’t you going to ask how he died?” 

“I was gettin’ to it.” 

“Heart attack. The fool probably got that vaccine.” 

Brian didn’t hide the eye roll. It seemed like every death for a while was the pandemic and then after that, was the vaccine. It didn’t matter if you were drunk and wrapping your car around a telephone poll. It was one thing and then another. 

“Don’t you even care?” 

What could we say? I didn’t know him; I didn’t want to know him. I am sure he was a fine human being struggling like the rest of us. But that’s that. Death comes for us all. It’s the great equalizer. It’s the bottom of the 9th. Some of us know what inning we’re playing in, but most don’t. 

My wife stormed back into the house muttering an obscenity about our ambivalence. My brother who didn’t like her, walked to the edge of the porch.

“I thought we was gunna get a show.” He grinned. 

“Gosh, Brian, I thought she was gunna crash right through this here porch.” 

If it were a celebrity she cared about, there’d be a good number of tears and wall-pounding. Any gossip, she fed off like an old hound. That was her way. 

Bottom of the 9th, they pulled May Lewis off the pitcher’s mound. He was the first reliever but hadn’t lasted long. 

I clapped as Joe Kennedy ran in with a lighthearted pep. I leaned in as my dad patted my shoulder. I looked at him. His absolute focus was on that field. Brian wasn’t there. He didn’t care for the Sox or the Cardinals. 

I knew if the Sox were losin’, we’d be gone by now. We only needed 2 more outs to win, which meant we had a shot at something. It also might mean we go home instead of a bar. Most bar owners in the area wouldn’t say anything about me, eight at the time, sitting on a stool next to my pops while he drank off the loss. 

Joe looked at the runner on first and third. Then at the catcher who held his fingers for the signal. We usually knew what to expect with Joe. He nodded, receiving the call, then wound up. 

Something about how Squirrely Henderson led off first base made Joe hesitate. Joe looked over at Squirrely and then threw.  

Strike 1. 

As it turns out, a few days later, we discovered Joe Kennedy was a distant relation of Gerald Harker who lived just up the road. 

Brian pointed at Harker with his cigar, “Best keep your words soft, don’t want to cause a hurricane.” Nodding his head toward my house. 

Harker nodded. He knew. Everyone knew – everyone with ears that is. 

“How’s the family doing?” I asked, needing something to say. 

“There was a letter found among his possessions: Open if I die at 54,” Harker spoke in his low and slow manner. 

“What’d it say?” 

“You remember that story about Wade McAllister.” 

Anybody who had ever lived in the sticks of central Illinois had heard of Wade McAllister and his magical flute. Local folklore and nonsense, but good ol’ Harker had our attention. 

“Flute boy?” I couldn’t help the grin. If I had known what I know now, well, I probably would’ve spoken with more reverence.  

Wade McAllister had found an old well. It was in an area outside the city near an old convent. You know, those old places where nuns hang out with God all day. I knew the place although I had never been. 

The well, as the story goes, has a small opening. It’s mostly dry, but if you go down it. There’s a way to do it and it is supposed to be tricky as hell. Like a lot of things, the knowledge is passed down from one kid to the next. 

I hadn’t gone as a kid. I hadn’t the nerve, but those who had talked about strange symbols spray painted on the walls. They told me the well opens almost immediately into a cave and the expanse stretches up and out and goes into the darkness with no end. 

“Devil’s Den,” I couldn’t help the shutter as I said it. 

“I hadn’t heard of that place in years,” Brian said popping his lips to make a ring with the smoke. When Brian looked down, he looked at me. He saw the goosebumps breaking out on my arm and laughed. 

“What?” I protested.

“Bunch of Satanists hanging out near a convent in an old well? Nah, that’s not true – kids’ stuff. Besides, are the nuns using the satanic well? They drinkin’ the water or is it just….” 

“I’ve been down in there,” Harker said. 

“You can’t use the well. Not like it’s supposed to be used.”

“What’s this have to do with Joe Kennedy?”

Wade was a precocious scamp of 9 or 10 when he found the flute in Devil’s Den. It was carved from a redwood that had no reason to be in central Illinois. Wade picked up that flute and as boys do without consideration for germs or consequences for their actions, he put it in his mouth and blew.

I’ve asked a lot of questions about the voice Wade heard. The story had been around since I was a kid. Different kids told me different things about what the voice had said. Different words were inflected or even the pitch and volume. But really, no one knew. No one had heard the voice except for poor Wade. The only thing united in every story was the flute told Wade when he would die.  

“The magical flute,” Brian repeated nodding with a small smile that I thought held a dirty joke although he never said it. 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Now how did Wade die again?” Brian asked. 

“Depends on who you ask.” I grinned still not believing it. 

Harker had a habit of pulling my leg on more than one occasion. But looking at him, either his poker face had improved, or we were in something real. “Bus hit him.” 

“Now, did that flute tell him it was a bus?” Brian, who never believed in anything of the sort, scratched his chin.

I eyed the doorway not wanting to have my wife overhear. She had a habit of making every conversation into a spectacle. 

“No,” Harker said finally. “The story goes, at least the story in the letta’, Wade heard the flute tell when he was gunna to die. The boy lost a week of sleep and eventually went with Joe and others to return it to Devil’s Den.” 

“But Joe kept it,” I said seeing where this was going. 

“Yes.” 

“And the flute told him he would die before 54.” 

“Where’s the flute now?” 

Harker reached around his back pocket and pulled it out. A flute carved out of a redwood. There was a pretty green trim making it look like leaves. Brian was up in no time and snatched it. Harker reacted briefly before nodding, holding up his hand as if happy to be free of it. Brian held it up in the air scrutinizing it before putting his mouth on it and blew.  

Strike 1. 

Joe nodded. 5 more strikes and the game was ours. He dusted off his red and white uniform and looked upward as if able to see the heavens. Maybe he was just prayin’. 

He checked the runners on first and third. Squirrely Henderson had another good lead. Joe eyed him. He wound up for the pitch, not turning his head until he released the ball. 

The ball whizzed past the batter as if he hadn’t expected it. No one had. My father and I were on our feet as the umpire called out, “Strike 2!” 

There was no thunderclap of sinister intent. There was no break in the cool breeze blowing across us. The smoke from our cigars made no reverberations as if to reveal something invisible moving through. The voice came out as if someone were next to us – casual as can be. 

“You will die in seven days.” 

If I had to guess, I’d say it like scratching an itch. Brain moved without thought. 

“That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” Harker blurted before catching himself. 

“Wade got what? A few months to live from the story I heard. Joe got years, I reckon almost forty. But me, I get a week?” 

“Why don’t you blow on it again, see if it says something different.” I offered in an attempt at scientific exploration. Not allowing myself to believe it. 

Both turned to me. Not interested in science, but befuddled at the whole mess. 

“I can’t believe you did that!” Harker said again.

“It’s a flute. What else am I supposed to do?” Brian didn’t flinch. 

“A week’s not a long time,” I offered but by their faces, I wasn’t contribuin’ to the conversation much.  

Harker didn’t touch the flute and seemed to leave us to our devices almost seconds after this transpired. Brain took a few more puffs of smoke. Silence drifted in with the clouds of smoke.  

I tried talking to Brian. I tried asking about destroying the flute or returning it to the Den. He rose and walked to the edge of my porch and hopped off. He lingered next to his truck.  

Brian plucked a dandelion and blew on it. The white seedlings flew in the wind. Then nodded before getting in his truck and going home. 

I stared at his cigar still burning perched on the ashtray. The smoke rose. Next to it, that flute just sat starin – waitin’ to be played. 

Ball 1. 

High and to the right, the ball whizzed nowhere near the batter and caused the catcher, Ricky McD, to leap up and catch it.  

Joe nodded as Ricky threw the ball back. 

We were all on our feet as Joe turned to see Squirrely Henderson take off for second base. Joe threw but Squirrely got there in time. The man next to us yelled an obscenity at the ump. It looked too close to call. 

The crowd booed Joe Kennedy who seemed to shake it off like it wasn’t a thing. Maybe it wasn’t. Later, my father three beers in, would say that it was McD’s fault for not seeing it. He should’ve thrown it right to second. 

But in the moment, I alongside thousands of other fans booed for Joe to get out of there. 

The next morning, I heard Brian’s truck and came out to meet him. I looked over at where he had been sitting, where the flute had been. Brian smelled of whiskey and poor decisions. The sun had just crept over the rise and dawn was upon us. 

“Where is it?” 

“In the house.” 

“I want it.” 

I nodded. Brain followed. Reluctant to touch it, I had picked it up with a kitchen towel. I should’ve noticed it in a different spot on the kitchen counter. I grabbed the towel, and he took it. 

The lure of it seemed to leave me as he grabbed it. As if somehow, I was able to let it go, even just a little. I didn’t sleep well with it in the house. I was worried about my brother. I wanted to use that flute. I felt it itching inside. 

“Bri….” 

“I’m taking it back to Devil’s Den. You don’t have to come with me.” 

“Ball 2!” The umpire shouted. 

At any game, it comes down to nerves. If a team gets ahead of it and keeps it, it can go on like that and momentum drowns out the rest. Most games come down to asking whether the stuff inside you is more steel than the stuff inside the other guy. That’s the real game. That’s where it counts. 

Joe looked down and then at Squirrelly. I don’t know why I knew this. I was just a kid. Maybe I was a little more emotional of a kid, but still, I knew more than balls and booing, Squirrelly stealing 2nd base hurt his pride. The momentum was shaken. He held the ball tight, nodded at McD, then pitched. 

“Okay. I’m in.”

“Harker is on his way.” 

“That so?” I couldn’t help the surprise. 

“He’s as much a part of this as you. He was acting like the flute transferred ownership the second I blew on it. He practically ran. But he’ll be here.” 

“You think Devil’s Den is still there?” 

“I think it’s worth a shot.” 

The crack of the ball contacting the bat drove the stadium into silence. Joe Kennedy leaped up, glove out in a Hail Mary gesture. I didn’t see him catch it. I didn’t think he could. All I saw was him tumble forward, kind of falling, but not – if that makes sense and then stampeding forward looking at the runner on third daring him to try and make it home. 

“Out!” The umpire called. 

“Why do you think Joe took it?” I asked as I turned down the third dirt road in the last five minutes. 

Harker and Brain hardly spoke. My truck bounced us a little and when I looked the backseat at Brian who stared out the window. 

I asked a few more questions and got little answers as we pulled up an old, rusted gate with a bronze cross attached to it. 

A sign hung over the cross with big block letters saying it was closed. The sign next to the gate said, “Saint Mary’s Convent.” 

“This it,” I said turning off my truck and getting out. 

They followed. The large chain around the gates was useless. A few steps past, there was a broken part of the fence. We squeezed through easy enough. Brian put the flute in his back pocket. He caught me eyeing it. 

He grinned. There was something wonderful about that grin. Something as if this terrible task hadn’t called upon us to return this flute. 

“What?” I asked. 

Brain shrugged, “I didn’t want the flute that close to my dick.” 

We laughed and it seemed to break the spell for a few minutes as we approached a stretch of dead grass. Brown leaves beaten into the ground littered around us. Statues began to surround us. Truth be told, I didn’t even see them as we approached but all of a sudden they were there. Holy statues of saints and angels, Christ, and his mother around us in different places looking in every direction as if we were the ones intruding. 

The old paths that might’ve been here had been overgrown. A few benches were scattered about, but without a path, it looked without reason. The benches had seen their day and looked full of ruin. 

“How much farther?” Brain asked. 

“Near the hedge there.” Harker pointed. 

The hedge was attached to a metal fence. Growing out and around, the brush seemed to grow up and wild. Near the fence, a half dozen stones seemed tumbled around with no discernable pattern. 

“There,” Harker said. 

We stood above the stones and saw the small hole. It’s almost as if the earth was taking back the well. 

“Come on.” Brain said as he crouched down and began to move back the earth and stones to make the hole larger.

“No, not here.” Harker said. “There’s another way.” 

Joe looked down as the crowd calmed. Squirrelly Henderson was on second. Another runner, I can’t remember his name, was on third. 

As Pete Skeever, the Cardinal’s first baseman, walked out to bat. The crowd went wild. The noise erupted shaking the entire stadium. Skeever was having a hell of a season. The talk at the time was he might come close to the homerun record. Although he wouldn’t even come close, he had started out like a firecracker and burned out quickly. 

Skeever was a hitter. He wobbled his neck back and forth he approached home. He waved the bat once or twice before holding it high over his head before resting it on his shoulder. 

I was watching Joe Kennedy. Joe held that ball tight as he lifted his chin taking in all the noise. 

Harker took off his shirt and laid it over the barbed wire fence. He didn’t seem to wait for us as he took it back and hopped out of sight. We did the same. 

“Hold on to it,” Harker said holding the fence. 

I saw what he meant as I climbed over. It looked all shrub and brush from the other side, but once you got over, the ditch went deep and had a thin trail of water running through. Holding onto the fence, you had to lower yourself down. On the other side of the ditch, another barbed wire fence kept us quartered off. The field next to it stretched out with giant corn stalks keeping us away from any prying eyes. 

Harker nodded putting his shirt on as I came down. 

“I used to be able to jump down here easily,” Harker said. “Now, I’m too damn old.” 

I was tempted to do it but just as quickly saw my ankle or knee protesting violently leaving me in the ditch. We climbed down. The inside was filled with mud and branches. Overgrown bushes stretched in periodically as we walked and slopped our way through. 

“So, what are we doin’, just leavin it? You think someone or something down there that wants a chat or maybe…” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” Brian said as we started walking. 

“Some… thing down there…” I didn’t want to say a demon, but I didn’t know what else might be lurking there. “Might not take lightly to you coming into his home.” 

“I just think this might be the only way out. You know, even if it’s bullshit, you don’t know. I don’t know. I gotta do it. Stay out of it, I won’t blame you.” 

“No, I’m with you.” 

“We wasn’t close when we was young. We close now.” He looked at me and that was nearest thing to an ‘I love you’ I would ever get from him. 

I don’t know how long we walked but we walked long enough to where I thought I should’ve moved the truck closer. 

Harker saw it first. He pointed at a tree that hung over the ditch. When we got closer, I saw him pull out his phone. 

“You got somewhere to be?” I asked. 

“As a matter of fact, yeah.” 

Harker pointed at a bush growing out and over into the ditch. I looked at him. He nodded. I pulled it back seeing the cave opening. I watched Harker and Brian look at each other before Brian went in. I looked at Harker who shook his head once to the side. He brought us here but wasn’t coming in. 

I wonder now if he went in if things would’ve been different. Maybe not. Maybe that’s not how the world is. I don’t know. Maybe his presence would’ve changed it. Then again, who knows? Maybe not. 

Joe looked at Squirrelly on second and then checked the runner on third. When Joe let the first ball go, I honestly didn’t see it. It moved that fast. 

Skeever swung and the crowd was silent as we listened for the echo off the bat – an echo that never came. 

I looked up at my dad. He put his hand on my shoulder not wanting to draw his eyes away from the game as the umpire shouted out the first strike. 

I let the bush brush past as I went into the darkness. Brian had his phone out with the flashlight on. Water dropped somewhere in the distance into a pool. The cave stretched out in silence. 

My mind whirled with possibilities. We stood there just staring for a minute before Brian nodded and started in.  

When I heard the cry of some creature deep inside, I took a step back. Brian’s face was resolute, he looked at me, then nodded for me to leave. I refused. If my brother wanted me to go into hell’s cave, the Devil’s Den, I’d go there and back just because it was my brother. 

I nodded no. He returned the nod. We walked into the darkness. 

There were spray-painted markings along the walls, but time had chipped away at some of them. Red and yellow spray paint didn’t last long in a damp cave. Roots hung from above us. Rocks, some gravel, some larger moved as we walked toward a smaller opening back and to the right. There were other openings but most of them were small. I had a feeling, much as I think Brian did, that we wouldn’t have to crawl to get to where we were going. 

We crouched down and then another opening lifted as the rocks formed a makeshift staircase downward. Brian flashed his phone back and forth a few times, but by this time I had my own out and was lighting my own path. For so long, that’s what it was like to have a big brother, going before you and lighting your path. Then you light your own. 

Different rooms, at least that’s what I think of them as, expanded in between the paths. We walked slowly. Time didn’t move so much as just inch along. Occasionally, we’d find what we started thinking as relics. Old beer bottles, an old skin mag, and even a bong lay discarded and forgotten. 

Then we saw the red eyes. Ahead of us, red eyes stared at us. We knew we had found where we were headed. 

Joe paused and looked up for a second. A smile spread across his face as if he had an epiphany. It was as if he knew that everything would come through. It was just a game and he was just playing and being paid for something he loved. 

He relaxed his pose and straightened his back. He looked to the runners. The crowd went wild. Everything seemed to be shouting. Joe tossed the ball up a few inches and caught it before getting into his stance. 

Joe smiled, disconnected from what was going on around him. Everything had been detached. It wasn’t that it didn’t matter, it was more like it had all fallen into perspective. 

Joe wound up, checked the runners, and threw. 

The growl started before Brian reached behind his back to the flute still in his back pocket. He held it out slowly before bending to place it on the stones before us. I took a step back and then another, but Brain stepped forward into his fate. 

His phone flashlight lifted to a flash of fur as a wolf ran toward him. Brian screamed dropping the flute and his phone unable to lift his hands in time to try and protect himself from the bite. 

I screamed and maybe it was because of my sheer panic or maybe it was because the deed was done, the wolf retreated into the darkness. 

I had not seen it. I only know a little of what I saw, but the whole time I had not broken away from the sight of the red eyes staring at me from the darkness. 

I grabbed Brian. I don’t remember carrying him but suddenly we were out into the daylight of the ditch with Harker. We were screaming. We were crying. Blood was everywhere. 

Joe threw. Skeever made contact. The echo reverberated through the stands as everyone who wasn’t already on their feet rose. The ball went high. 

Our breaths caught in our throats. Music thundered through the final moments as words flashed violently on the jumbotron, “HOMERUN!” Then as the words died, an animated batter swung at a ball. The ball cut through the air and landed on soft clouds near a golden gate. Presumably, Saint Peter picked up the ball and lobbed it back as if to say, yes, but not yet. 

Brian spent his last 6 days on earth in the hospital. Most of us thought he was getting better. The doctors proclaimed it. The nurses preached it. But I knew. I knew because I had seen those red eyes looking at me. I knew and as I remember seeing him and talking to him, I think he knew too. 

He had to be put in a medically induced coma for a day or two while the doctors worked on him the first time. He had been talkative after that, but on the morning of, before dawn, when the infection no one saw attacked – well, he was gone before I got there. 

My wife never learned of what had happened to Brian. She left before I had gotten back from the hospital. The note was in the kitchen next to the towel that had held the flute. It wasn’t hard to put it all together. 

D – 

If I have 5 years left, I don’t want to spend them with you. 

She didn’t even sign her name. That was just as well. Good riddance to bad rubbish. 

When I put the note back on the counter, I moved the kitchen towel and in doing so, caught my breath watching the flute roll out from under. 

Afterward, the talk of the bar was Joe smiling before he threw that pitch. It hit the newspapers the next morning and while I can’t remember a single quote from Joe in those stories on why he was smiling, I do remember conjecture and wild speculation. 

The assumption was that Joe didn’t take the game seriously. But I don’t think that’s what it was. Truth be told, I hadn’t thought about that smile until after I found the note from my wife. 

We don’t know what inning we’re in. Some of us know we’re playing in the 9th and living the dread of it. Some of us are free because of that knowledge. Would Brian have died if he hadn’t tried to return the flute? I guess I’ll never know. 

It wasn’t the smile that kicked Joe Kennedy out of baseball forever. It was the little toss and catch to himself he did before he made his pitch. The Sox dropped him shortly after. I never looked it up. Maybe I don’t want to know. I like to think about it as the last time he played professional ball. 

The flute calls to me now singing its dark song of possibility. I know Brian dropped it in that cave. I had assumed for the last week of his life that Brian’s phone would be forever lost next to that flute.

Is that how magic works? Once it’s used, it can’t be discarded. But I think about playing that flute every day. The nagging thought follows me to work and wakes me in the night. I miss my brother. I miss what I had. Some of us know what inning we’re playing in, but most don’t. 

Kris Green lives in Florida with his beautiful wife and two savage children. He’s been published over 80 times in the last few years by the wonderful people at Nifty Lit, The Haberdasher: Peddlers of Literary Art, In Parentheses Magazine, Route 7 Review, BarBar Magazine, and many more. He won the 2023 Barbe Best Short Story and Reader’s Choice Award for his short story, “Redemption”. He has regular nonfiction articles being published by Solid Food Press on fatherhood entitled “On Raising Savages”.